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The demise of the BicycleWA web site.

Posted: Fri Feb 08, 2008 9:56 am
by heavymetal
The demise of the BicycleWA web site.

For those who know me, I am the founder of the BicycleWA website and current webmaster. The web site mainly catered for Bicycle Tourists in Western Australia, but we also had some fun with some side projects. The site has been in operation for around 2 years.

It is with deep regret that I am announcing that the complete BicycleWA website no longer exists and will not be restored at this stage.

We have had constant outages and never ending issues with our web hosting provider. After they made the news twice in December, and with their latest extended outage due to fried servers, (it is unknown when the servers will be replaced) I have made the decision to not do business with this company anymore.

Due to ill health, insecurity of rental properties for accommodation in Perth, and lack of time I am unable to move the site elsewhere. Therefore as webmaster I regret to inform everyone that the web site will no longer exist. My brother who owns the business - BicycleWA will still be providing support to the cycle touring community in the Mid West area of WA.

I would like to deeply thank everyone who contributed time and material to the website. Whilst I have complete and full backups, I don't have the time to attempt to move the site.

The small hobby log/journal project that I was currently working on may re-appear one day, but the BicycleWA web site in it's entirety will not.

I would like to thank everyone once again for their assistance and contribution over the years.

I decided to announce this here as all of our members except one are also members here. I'm suspect though, that this one member may be using a different name here.

Thanks.

Kev.

Posted: Fri Feb 08, 2008 1:37 pm
by moosterbounce
Shame Kev.

I know I wasn't a member (you wouldn't have let me in with Scottie anyway :wink: ), but I did visit from time to time and such a passing, though understandable from your message, is a sad time.

From a WA perspective, this is almost on a par with Sheldon.

Who will risk life and limb building a superlight bike and actually testing it?!

Re: The demise of the BicycleWA web site.

Posted: Fri Feb 08, 2008 1:41 pm
by exadios
heavymetal wrote:The demise of the BicycleWA web site.

For those who know me, I am the founder of the BicycleWA website and current webmaster. The web site mainly catered for Bicycle Tourists in Western Australia, but we also had some fun with some side projects. The site has been in operation for around 2 years.

It is with deep regret that I am announcing that the complete BicycleWA website no longer exists and will not be restored at this stage.

We have had constant outages and never ending issues with our web hosting provider. After they made the news twice in December, and with their latest extended outage due to fried servers, (it is unknown when the servers will be replaced) I have made the decision to not do business with this company anymore.

Due to ill health, insecurity of rental properties for accommodation in Perth, and lack of time I am unable to move the site elsewhere. Therefore as webmaster I regret to inform everyone that the web site will no longer exist. My brother who owns the business - BicycleWA will still be providing support to the cycle touring community in the Mid West area of WA.

I would like to deeply thank everyone who contributed time and material to the website. Whilst I have complete and full backups, I don't have the time to attempt to move the site.

The small hobby log/journal project that I was currently working on may re-appear one day, but the BicycleWA web site in it's entirety will not.

I would like to thank everyone once again for their assistance and contribution over the years.

I decided to announce this here as all of our members except one are also members here. I'm suspect though, that this one member may be using a different name here.

Thanks.

Kev.
That's a pity.

Posted: Fri Feb 08, 2008 1:51 pm
by gsxrboy
Many people appreciate the efforts, time and sacrifices you put in during the sites life. Good luck with moving on from it with other endeavours :)

Well im still here

Posted: Fri Feb 08, 2008 2:06 pm
by Crank
Well i will have to come here now with all my madness and i might even let you guys and girls have a look at me testing a lightweight bicycle made out of paper macha...

As for the website Bicyclewa i will still support people who are touring in the mid west of W.A. under my business Bicyclewa then again i try to help out with anyone with a bicycle.
Also like to say thanks to Kev for hes time supporting touring in W.A. (which he allready knows but now its in writing)

Cheers
CRANK

Posted: Fri Feb 08, 2008 2:14 pm
by heavymetal
Thanks everyone.

Just out of interest, the web hosting company involved has a major disaster on their hands and have still not notified their customers that anything is wrong.

I found out via other means.

However one good thing out of this, is that it gives me more time to ride my bike once I figure out how to get the touring bike back together so it works properly.

Kev.

Posted: Sat Feb 09, 2008 12:45 pm
by Aushiker
Hi Kev

Really sorry to hear of this news. You have put heaps of work into the site from what I saw and it was coming along nicely. Yep a real bummer.

Care to share the details of the hosting company?

Andrew

Posted: Sat Feb 09, 2008 12:58 pm
by heavymetal
Aushiker wrote:Care to share the details of the hosting company?
It would be unprofessional of me to do that :wink: Bit it is the one mentioned in this news article on the IT news website.

Incidentally this news article is referring to one of the many incidents that happened in December. It did not affect our site as I have preventive measures in place. Although the hackers hacked up a completely fake web site I kept myself amused for days over that one :D

Thanks for your support Andrew. I would have emailed all of our members, but I have no mail servers, and the latest date on the servers coming back up are still 72 hours away if that.

The site will be removed as soon as that happens. It will probably be trashed anyway as the company mentioned in the above article has a habit of running 3 week old backups over everyone's sites.

Thanks

Kev.

Posted: Sat Feb 09, 2008 1:03 pm
by europa
Sorry it had to come this Kev. It's always better when you can choose to pull something apart. Then again, maybe this was a blessing in disguise.

Richard

Posted: Sat Feb 09, 2008 1:07 pm
by heavymetal
europa wrote:Then again, maybe this was a blessing in disguise.
I'm beginning to think that. I have to move house in a few months, I have health issues, and the web site was getting too large.

The site itself was well over 100 MB plus another 50 MB in both databases. Due to the lack of broadband (we only have fraudband) attempting a reload is ridiculous.

With outbound traffic going up over 2GB (after software being fitted to stop scrapers and bots) it was going to start costing me money to keep it alive.

Kev.

Posted: Sat Feb 09, 2008 2:51 pm
by mikesbytes
Is there anyone to give the site to ?

Posted: Sat Feb 09, 2008 3:17 pm
by heavymetal
mikesbytes wrote:Is there anyone to give the site to ?
I thought of this, but there are a few issues.

50% of the material on the web site is personally mine, another 40% is owned by BicycleWA, and the rest is made up from members contributing material.

However the main issue is the software that was running the site. It was 2 parts. The main web site was Open Source, but the ride logs and other stuff was custom developed and plugged into open source forum software. There is also a load of other background custom software running.

Trying to untangle this can get messy, and there may be another use for the proprietary software. Also the environment it runs under

Anyway I haven't had any takers, but I have had one ambulance chasing web hosting company already contact me offering me an inferior service at a 50% discount.

While this might work I still haven't regained control of one of the domain names.

Kev.

Posted: Sat Feb 09, 2008 7:57 pm
by Aushiker
What about hosting it on US based servers? I use Dreamhost as an example, but I am sure there are better options around at a reasonable price?

Andrew

Posted: Sat Feb 09, 2008 8:08 pm
by Caelum
i have 300gb of storage and 3000gb of tranfers a month on a US server.

I'm more than happy for your site to be moved there, if you so wish. No Charge.

Atleast until you find a more permanent solution(but i'm not taking my site elsewhere, and am likely to renew my current contract in a years time for another 2 years).


Shoot me a PM if you're interested.

Posted: Sat Feb 09, 2008 8:21 pm
by heavymetal
Thanks guys. I'm still trying to recover control of one of the domain names. The AU name is fine and in our control.

I may have something lined up, there's just a few things to sort out. The site may re-appear but in a cut down version.

Kev.

Posted: Sat Feb 09, 2008 8:48 pm
by Mulger bill
!! BAN ME NOW FOR SWEARING !! Kev, all your work down the crapper. That sucks like a Dyson. :evil:
Nice of the hosting company to admit their protection wasn't up to scratch, makes you feel better eh? :roll:

Forget about the site for a while mate and concentrate on getting your health sorted, some things aren't worth the ulcer.

Shaun

Posted: Sat Feb 09, 2008 9:48 pm
by heavymetal
Mulger bill wrote:!! BAN ME NOW FOR SWEARING !! Kev, all your work down the crapper. That sucks like a Dyson. :evil:
At least it didn't go down Crank's crapper that's in the BOB trailer. It has no bottom on it. I would have lost it forever. I have a replicated copy on my home web server so it's not lost.
Mulger bill wrote:Nice of the hosting company to admit their protection wasn't up to scratch, makes you feel better eh? :roll:
I still haven't heard from the company yet. Neither has any of the thousands of their other customers.

I'll take your advice and look after the health. I'm re-assembling the tourer (the MTB gives me issues with the hand) and hopefully should ride it tomorrow.

Kev.

Posted: Tue Feb 12, 2008 10:31 pm
by heavymetal
For those interested, I have regained control of the domain names and currently have them hosted elsewhere. Still haven't heard from the company concerned :?

Part of the site is back, mainly the member's area containing the ride logs. The main part of the site which contains all of the touring information and route info will slowly be loaded as a static web site so I have less maintenance work to do. :D = more riding time

Quite a few people expressed their concern that all that info was gone, so I'm putting it all back, but as something with minimal overhead.

Thanks for the offer of help everyone.

Kev.